Background Macrosomia refers to newborn with an excessive birth weight. Fetal macrosomia has been defined as birth weight of 4000–4500 g or greater than 90% for gestational age after correcting for neonatal sex and ethnicity. Based on these definitions, macrosomia affects 1–10% of all pregnancies. Attempts at perinatal diagnosis of macrosomia have proven difficult and are often inaccurate. Thus, a diagnosis of fetal macrosomia can only be confirmed retrospectively.

Due to lack of data on management of macrosomia and associated perinatal outcomes in women without diabetes, we designed a retrospective study to examine the association between induction of labour (IOL) and mode of delivery (MOD) in low-risk women with neonatal macrosomia.

Methods Retrospective study was carried out over 1 year period (1st March 2011 – 29th Feb 2012) looking at singleton births of macrosomic neonates from non-diabetic women at term. Outcome measures include MOD, 5 minutes Apgar, neonatal injury.

Results and Conclusions 232 women delivered neonates with birthweight of >4000 grammes. 18 women had elective CS, 90 women had spontaneous labour and 144 women were induced. 24 women were induced due to suspected macrosomia. Of all the 24 women who had IOL for suspected macrosomia, 38% had emergency CS, 38% had normal delivery and 25% had instrumental delivery. Higher rate of CS (38% vs 8%) was noted in women who were induced for suspected macrosomia compared to women who had spontaneous labour, and there is no significant difference in the 5 min Apgar and neonatal injury in the two groups.